Survival hunter in dragonflight

[larsnijhuis1984]

Hello Guys,

I’m recently started playing an survival hunter and i am liking it alot. We are partically strong because of the set bonus.

And There lies my concern. Will we still be viable in dragonflight without the set bonus? Im not looking for the strongest class but i want to be viable.

Any of you have an idea or opinion?

[Vaedan]

Hard to say at the moment, since we still don't know the exact tuning.

Class tree seem to be quite fine, with both utility and damage choices.

Survival tree has several issues atm:
- Tree is bloated with 3 point talent nodes: we already know this will be adressed and these nodes will be reduced
- majority of the tree are rather boring % dmg increase talents for certain skills
- Some talents are extremely undertuned and laughably weak. What's even worse, they require many points to even work.

On the other hand, we will get some new tools to play with, like Explosive Shot. I'm curious how they will adress current survival tree issues.

[keyone01]

If you just started then you should know that after rework to melee, msv was one of the least popular specs in the game and this tier is exception in terms of participation due to absurdal dps gain from set bonus (which will be adressed in S4 of Shadowlands, just like destro warlocks).

The very moment ranged hunter specs will do better/same/slighly lower damage that it, you will have a hard time as msv.

[AmbervaleX]

Just because not every spec is represented in the MDI, doesn't mean they aren't viable. Unless you are in the top, your skill has much more effect than the spec.

[richardhuntr]

Just because not every spec is represented in the MDI, doesn't mean they aren't viable. Unless you are in the top, your skill has much more effect than the spec.

This, meta specs annoy me, because it's better to be amazing at a spec you like (and you'll be happier to boot) than terrible at a spec you don't , that happens to be FOTM. Most WILL perform better if they actually enjoy the spec that they're playing, and usually to the extent their performance is better than if they rolled a "meta" spec.

As for the OPs question, if you like SV, stick with it, I played ret for years before maining hunter, and never had an issue enjoying the game.

[Makaloff]

Hello Guys,

I’m recently started playing an survival hunter and i am liking it alot. We are partically strong because of the set bonus.

And There lies my concern. Will we still be viable in dragonflight without the set bonus? Im not looking for the strongest class but i want to be viable.

Any of you have an idea or opinion?

hard to say, without the numbers from beta there is no clear conclusion just yet. allthought from analysing the survival tree, it isnt looking good for survival due how bad the talent tree is for them. Viability i guess its depending on what content you wanna do, if you just do LFR or casual content then you can play whatever really. but if you planning to push keys or mythic raiding/arena/RBGs then you probably gonna have to reroll to the strongest option.

[Accendor]

Long story short: The only thing that makes Survival enjoyable is Mad Bombadier. I'm not even talking about the damage, I'm talkin about the mechanic. Take that away and nobody will play the spec once again, I'm sure of it.

[Bisque]

I am sure that if SV underperforms in DF they will buff something. Buff raptor strike or kill command etc... SV did receive tuning buffs at times throughout shadowlands when needed so I don't think blizz has any intention of leaving SV "behind". Plus there is a recent blue post on how they don't have any intention of making a RSV as another spec choice so I have to imagine that if SV lags behind it will be buffed accordingly.

[Rondi]

This, meta specs annoy me, because it's better to be amazing at a spec you like (and you'll be happier to boot) than terrible at a spec you don't , that happens to be FOTM. Most WILL perform better if they actually enjoy the spec that they're playing, and usually to the extent their performance is better than if they rolled a "meta" spec.

As for the OPs question, if you like SV, stick with it, I played ret for years before maining hunter, and never had an issue enjoying the game.

Yep. That’s pretty much it, just play what you enjoy most and if you’re not planning to play +28 keys, then you’ll be fine playing whatever spec in the game.

Unfortunately, most people are meta-slaves watching MDI and therefore think that you have to have a Sv Hunter and a destro wl to time a +20 key. I play BM and lately mostly mm as necrolord. I get invited to 21 keys and not higher once they see my spec. Yet I have not seen one meta spec outdps me in any dungeon. 90% of Sv and destro with rio 3400+ (300 points above me) are mediocre. In SD for example I do around 22k overall while these two meta heroes are at 15-16k, yet they get invited because meta. And that scenario happens a lot.

Play what you enjoy most, that’s always been the rule.

[sponge5307]

At least with hunter you can fall back on the other 2 range spec. One will at least be decent.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

Long story short: The only thing that makes Survival enjoyable is Mad Bombadier. I'm not even talking about the damage, I'm talkin about the mechanic. Take that away and nobody will play the spec once again, I'm sure of it.

MB is actually what makes it pretty boring and even annyoing after a while, people are playing the spec because it is broken with tierset...not because it is more fun than before.

[Djaye]

i would say Surv hunter will be even more fun to play, as we are getting a good amount of additional utility and a full ranged dps kit. what the numbers will be like is anyones guess, but the class will be a ton of fun to play that is for sure.

this has been my main metric for classes since MoP as my main is a Monk, the greatest class WoW has ever seen;}

[Makaloff]

i would say Surv hunter will be even more fun to play, as we are getting a good amount of additional utility and a full ranged dps kit. what the numbers will be like is anyones guess, but the class will be a ton of fun to play that is for sure.

this has been my main metric for classes since MoP as my main is a Monk, the greatest class WoW has ever seen;}

wdym with full ranged kit? theres never a time where you wanna use SS or AS as surv (and using a bow is -50% dmg anyway).

to answer OP, survival will be fine, its talent is still a bit bad (allthought i think they have improved a bit since its first iteration on alpha). So if you enjoy it keep playing it. However i would say once DF hits, surv hunters probably will fall back into the 5% representation again, after all only reason people play surv hunter now (for most part) is due how busted the 4 set and double leggos are, which we will lose going into DF. Not that it will matter that much unless you planning to mythic raid or push beyond +15/20's

[KrayZ33]

Long story short: The only thing that makes Survival enjoyable is Mad Bombadier. I'm not even talking about the damage, I'm talkin about the mechanic. Take that away and nobody will play the spec once again, I'm sure of it.

Eh I doubt it... if it is due to Mad Bombadier, it's because of the damage.

The KC spam is really boring and pretty dumb too. If you are in a loop, you basically do nothing but that.

The DoT theme it seems to have in DF sounds a lot more fun, even though I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the current version of talents.
But the Serpent Sting buffs you can get in both trees alongside the enhanced Killshot damage and the new Coordinated assault sounds amazing.

During Coordinated assault, Killshot will deal almost twice as much damage as Aimed Shot but on 4 Targets, is usable on any target, and only has 5s CD - sheesh.
Serpent Sting as well. Seems like you'll no longer just spam 2 buttons but instead make use of your arsenal once again.
Especially AoE will be fun again.

[jrod45]

Well i for one am glad they brought back Fury of the eagle. I loved that move in Legion and was super mad when i lost it. Interested in using flanking(never used it) and Coordinated with spearhead. Im excited overall. Mad they added in bola as a prerequisite to get explosive shot.

[sponge5307]

wdym with full ranged kit? theres never a time where you wanna use SS or AS as surv (and using a bow is -50% dmg anyway).

to answer OP, survival will be fine, its talent is still a bit bad (allthought i think they have improved a bit since its first iteration on alpha). So if you enjoy it keep playing it. However i would say once DF hits, surv hunters probably will fall back into the 5% representation again, after all only reason people play surv hunter now (for most part) is due how busted the 4 set and double leggos are, which we will lose going into DF. Not that it will matter that much unless you planning to mythic raid or push beyond +15/20's

Eh I doubt it... if it is due to Mad Bombadier, it's because of the damage.

The KC spam is really boring and pretty dumb too. If you are in a loop, you basically do nothing but that.

The DoT theme it seems to have in DF sounds a lot more fun, even though I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the current version of talents.
But the Serpent Sting buffs you can get in both trees alongside the enhanced Killshot damage and the new Coordinated assault sounds amazing.

During Coordinated assault, Killshot will deal almost twice as much damage as Aimed Shot but on 4 Targets, is usable on any target, and only has 5s CD - sheesh.
Serpent Sting as well. Seems like you'll no longer just spam 2 buttons but instead make use of your arsenal once again.
Especially AoE will be fun again.

Heck I have no idea what I am doing SV bot 4p with 2 lego and I am dong over 20k dps on mobs..... I was like hmmmmm what just happened.....

[Makaloff]

Heck I have no idea what I am doing SV bot 4p with 2 lego and I am dong over 20k dps on mobs..... I was like hmmmmm what just happened.....

well, busted 4p and double leggo tends to do that XD Going to be interesting to see how the specc will fare in DF

[aceperson]

Hello Guys,

I’m recently started playing an survival hunter and i am liking it alot. We are partically strong because of the set bonus.

And There lies my concern. Will we still be viable in dragonflight without the set bonus? Im not looking for the strongest class but i want to be viable.

Any of you have an idea or opinion?

unless you're doing cutting edge content (ie mythic raids, +20 keys, or high end rated pvp), every class is viable. now whether or not the general community will even let you in their groups...

there have been times where even though melee hunter has had higher output than the ranged specs, the ranged specs are still preferred because of the utility and range. melee hunter really just doesn't have any real utility to bring that the ranged specs don't and the ranged specs don't have extended downtime due to range restrictions. now if they were given a death grip like blizz said they would when they announced melee survival...

[sponge5307]

SV have fall back to reality....... Actually all three hunter spec is super bad right now. Only BM seems a bit better both SV and MM is dead last with MM worse than SV.

Even then BM isn't much better. Doubt Hunter will see a lot of m+ this time around.

[Morfoneusz]

What do you mena by bad. Is it just number or rotation, fantasy, I don't recall huge reworks for hunter?